Feyerabend eventually developed these thoughts in a fascinating series of papers beginning in 1957, arguing that science needs realism in order to progress, and that positivism would stultify such progress.

These are also they who thanked the world information media for their co-operation in keeping the world population tame to allow them to take power, so we must also clean out all our means of education and information, which have been so dominated to mislead and misinform and stultify.

"It would be a mistake to drive us, in a moment of hysteria, to a solution that is unconstitutional, would stultify technology, and wouldn't even fulfill its mission," argues Jerry Berman, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.